Eni starts Nikaitchuq oil field off Alaska

By OGJ editors HOUSTON, Feb. 9 -- Eni SPA has started oil production from Nikaitchuq field off Alaska’s North Slope.

The company, with 100% interest, expects production to peak at 28,000 b/d and last 30 years. It estimates reserves at 220 million bbl.

At full development, the field will have 26 producing wells, 21 water injectors, and 5 water source and disposal wells. Twenty-two of the wells will be onshore and the rest offshore, drilled from an artificial island.

The field lies in an average 3 m of water.

Eni has completed the processing facility and 12 onshore wells. It will drill the remaining wells by 2014.

The wells have vertical depths of 4,000 ft and vertical reaches up to 20,000 ft.

The operator says the under-seabed pipeline bundle connecting the on and offshore facilities is the heaviest ever installed in the Arctic.

The processing facility can treat 40,000 b/d of heavy crude with sand and as much as 120,000 b/d of water, enabling Eni to ship sales-quality crude through the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline with no further processing.